


SLD Case Report: The safe-T-lite Situation

by tptplayer5701



Series: "Mind Games"-verse [40]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crime Fighting, Crimes & Criminals, Original Character-centric, Police Procedural, Post-Hawk Moth Defeat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-18 08:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29606337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tptplayer5701/pseuds/tptplayer5701
Summary: A “Mind Games”-verse SLD case:The man’s eyes bored into Ray’s face. “Unfortunately, we do believe there is the…possibility… that she may have been abducted,” he finally explained. “This isn’t the first unusual disappearance reported recently.”“What are you saying?”Ramus shot Ray a look. “What my partner is saying is that we will do everything in our power to find your daughter – and whoever may have taken her, if she was taken at all.”Ray's eye trailed down the man’s arm to his waist – specifically to the bulge in his front pocket over which he had placed his hand. “Sir?” he asked. “What is in your pocket?”His eyes widened nervously and he patted the pocket. “What, this?” he answered evasively. “It’s… nothing.”Ramus’ eyes narrowed. “Why don’t you show it to us?”
Series: "Mind Games"-verse [40]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1666807
Comments: 12
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

“Please! You have to find my daughter!”

Ray let out a slow breath and put his hand out in a placating manner. “I understand you are upset, sir,” he replied as calmly as he could. “And we will do everything we can to find her. But we can only do that if we have information. So you need to answer our questions so we can do our job properly.”

Their interviewee folded his arms and glowered at Ray and Ramus. “But I already answered every question imaginable for the _other_ officers,” he retorted, tapping his foot impatiently. “Why do I need to answer all of them _again_? Shouldn’t you be out there talking to everyone _else_?”

“We will,” Ramus assured him, nodding. “However, your previous statement raised some questions at the prefecture, so they passed your daughter’s disappearance on to us to investigate. We just need to verify some information and follow up on your initial statement.” He consulted his tablet. “Your name is Robert Boucharin, and your daughter is Oréane, 16, of this address?” The man nodded. “Your daughter is a student at Lycée Debauve?” Again the man nodded. “Any extracurricular activities?”

Boucharin shrugged. “She is on the lycée’s gymnastics team, but their next practice isn’t until tomorrow.”

“Any friends she might have gone to visit?” Ray asked. “A boyfriend?”

“Her best friend is Karine Hugon, but we already called her family and they hadn’t seen her.” Boucharin frowned darkly. “The last ‘boyfriend’ she told me about was months ago – they went on a couple dates, but he lost interest and started going out with one of her friends.”

Ray made a note on his tablet. “I take it they didn’t split – shall we say ‘amicably’?”

“You can say that,” Boucharin agreed.

“Could this animosity have boiled over into something more?”

Boucharin scoffed. “Absolutely not! That jackass broke my baby’s heart and dumped her. But that all happened over the summer – they haven’t seen each other since. Besides, I raised her better than to lash out over something like that.” He frowned suspiciously. “I already answered all of these questions for the other officers. What is this about? Why are you really here?”

Ray raised an eyebrow at Ramus. “Just a routine follow-up,” Ramus evaded. “Nothing to worry about.”

“None of the answers have changed.”

Ray chuckled, trying to put him at ease. “That’s because we haven’t asked _our_ questions yet.”

Boucharin scoffed. “I don’t know what questions those could be,” he responded, folding his arms and frowning. “The facts are still the same. We were sitting down for dinner two nights ago when Oréane just suddenly put her fork down and stared straight at the opposite wall. She stood up, a blank look on her face, and walked out the door. No coat, no hat, nothing.”

“Did she say anything to you before she left?” asked Ray, cocking his head. This was what had caught Prefect Raincomprix’s attention in the morning briefing, the reason he had taken the case away from the local precinct and had it transferred to the Superhero Liaison Department.

“No.” Boucharin shook his head. “I couldn’t get any reaction from her whatsoever.” His voice caught in his throat and he sniffled. “It was like I didn’t exist at all.”

Ray’s eyes darted over to Ramus, whose mouth was set in a thin line. This was the fourth girl in the last two weeks to go missing under similar circumstances. “Had she met anyone new recently?” Ramus asked.

Boucharin shook his head immediately.

“We need you to think really hard about this,” Ray told him, trying to make his face look as calm and confident as possible. “Did she say anything about someone new at school? Someone who seemed too interested in her on the street? Maybe someone she’d never met before who stopped to talk to her at the café? Any situations that might not have felt ‘right’ to her? Even if you both dismissed it at the time, you need to tell us.”

Boucharin shook his head adamantly. “No! Nothing like that. Everything seemed perfectly normal.”

“What about gifts?” Ramus asked next. “Is there _anything_ new in the house, anything at all? New mail from the last week? Groceries? It doesn’t matter how small or insignificant you think it might be, every little bit helps.”

Boucharin paused for a moment before he shook his head again. “What is this all about, officers?” he asked again, letting out a heavy sigh.

“Does she have a computer? Phone? Tablet? Any electronic devices at all?” Ramus looked past Boucharin into the sparsely-furnished apartment.

Boucharin cocked his head at them in confusion. “Please, just tell me what’s going on,” he pleaded, tears starting to form in his eyes.

“We’re just trying to figure out any connections,” Ramus answered dismissively.

“‘Connections’?” Boucharin eyed them suspiciously. His eyes widened in fear. “Do you mean she’s not the only victim??? Or do you mean you think she was kidnapped and you’re looking for a connection between her and the kidnapper!?! Oréane…” he moaned, covering his mouth with one hand.

Ray sighed bitterly. This was the worst part of investigative work. He put his hand on Boucharin’s shoulder and squeezed firmly. The man’s eyes bored into Ray’s face. Ray took a steeling breath. “Unfortunately, we _do_ believe there is the… _possibility_ … that she _may_ have been abducted,” he finally explained. “This isn’t the first unusual disappearance reported recently.”

“What are you saying?”

Ramus shot Ray a look. “What my partner is saying is that we will do everything in our power to find your daughter – and whoever _may_ have taken her, if she was taken at all.”

Boucharin’s shoulders slumped, an utterly heartbroken look on his face. “What can I do?”

“Let us know if you think of anything unusual or out of the ordinary,” Ramus replied. “And I mean _anything_. It doesn’t matter how small or insignificant you think it might be; something as simple as an innocuous phone call your daughter received the week before her disappearance could be the single piece of evidence on which the investigation turns.”

“I will,” Boucharin promised. “But… I want to do more. Please. This is my little girl we’re talking about here!”

“Does your daughter have any electronic devices at all?” Ray asked. When Boucharin nodded, he continued, “Can we take her devices with us?”

Boucharin slowly turned away to retreat back into the apartment, closing the door behind him. Ray turned to Ramus. “What do you think, LT?”

Ramus let out a humorless snort. “It doesn’t exactly pay to speculate without evidence,” he warned. “But my gut is telling me that we’re dealing with something superhuman here, though I couldn’t tell you what.”

“Four girls, all disappearing without a trace? It does sound like a pattern,” Ray agreed with a nod. “Add to that the blank affect and lack of response and there’s definitely an element of the supernatural to these disappearances.” He looked back at the picture on his tablet. This girl’s hair was the same color as Delphine’s. Would they find her? She had already been missing for almost 48 hours, so the chances of finding her were decreasing by the minute.

Why couldn’t they have started working this case _yesterday_?

Boucharin returned a minute later, hugging a laptop to his chest. Gingerly he passed it to Ray, staring at it regretfully. “This is all,” he explained. “She had her cell phone with her when she left; I gave the number to the other officers.” He paused, his hand resting on his front pocket. “Please be careful with that; Oréane’s whole life is on that computer. Can–can I have it back when you are finished with it?”

Ray nodded. “Of course,” he assured him. “We will be very careful with it. Once we have what we need we will return it to you.” His eye trailed down Boucharin’s arm to his waist – specifically to the bulge in his front pocket over which he had placed his hand. “Sir?” he asked. “What is in your pocket?”

Boucharin’s eyes widened nervously and he patted the pocket. “What, this?” he answered evasively. “It’s… nothing.”

Ramus’ eyes narrowed. “Why don’t you show it to us?”

Reluctantly, Boucharin withdrew a device that looked like a flashlight from his pocket. Ramus held out his hand, and Boucharin gave it to him. Ray leaned over for a closer look as Ramus turned it over and over in his palm. The device was about the length of a cell phone, cylindrical, with a wide head at one end. There were two buttons on the opposite end of the device. Bright lettering along the handle labeled it “safe-T-lite.”

Ray shrugged. “Never seen a flashlight like that before.”

Ramus pursed his lips and turned the safe-T-lite to point downward at the apartment building steps. “This isn’t a flashlight,” he replied. Boucharin’s expression turned anxious. Ramus looked up at him, frowning. “It’s an energy pistol.”

Ray cocked his head in surprise. “Seriously? That thing?” Looking at it, he remembered seeing the notice several weeks ago that small energy pistols had started appearing around the city, but he hadn’t given it much thought at the time. He glanced down at the pistol on his own belt before looking back at the safe-T-lite. “It hardly looks big enough for that,” he pointed out.

Ramus nodded, his eyes not leaving Boucharin’s face. “It’s a derringer: single shot.” He sighed heavily. “And all energy-based weapons have been classified as Category A2 restricted weapons.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Boucharin, his eyes widening in fear as he looked back and forth between the safe-T-lite and Ramus’ face.

“These are illegal to own, so we have to arrest you,” replied Ramus, a look of distaste on his face.

Ray frowned and raised an eyebrow, glancing from Boucharin to Ramus. “They still haven’t figured out how these things got on the market, have they?” he asked Ramus rhetorically. Turning back to Boucharin he suggested, “Why don’t you tell us where you got this one and we’ll count that as cooperation.”

Ramus narrowed his eyes at him, but Boucharin sighed in relief. “Someone at work picked a few of them up,” he explained. “He said he bought them from a guy he met at a bar a few blocks from the Eiffel Tower.” He hesitated. “I… um… thank you. For being so understanding.”

Ray could feel Ramus’ displeasure as he quickly responded, “Don’t let it happen again. And be sure to let us know if you think of anything else to help us find your daughter.”

Boucharin quickly closed the door, and Ray followed Ramus down the steps back toward their patrol car. Only once they were inside and he had placed the safe-T-lite in an evidence bag did Ramus look at him, sigh, and say, “You should have run that by me first.”

“I felt sorry for the guy,” Ray defended, shrugging. “He just wanted to protect himself and his family. I can’t exactly say that I wouldn’t do the same if it meant keeping Delphine safe. Or my parents. Would you?”

“That doesn’t matter,” replied Ramus shortly. “He still broke the law: energy weapons like this are illegal for a reason. The more of them there are on the streets, the more likely they are to get into the wrong hands – and that makes our job that much harder. There are legal ways that people can defend themselves.”

Ray scoffed. “They’re already in the wrong hands,” he pointed out. “How many of those other methods will work against super-people? The fact that our department even exists should be proof that tasers and pepper spray aren’t always enough. And when the man’s daughter might have been abducted by one of those super-people…” He frowned. “He’s not the bad guy here.”

Ramus sighed heavily. “No, he isn’t. Look, I don’t like it any more than you do, but this is the law we have to enforce. And the law is supposed to keep people safe.”


	2. Chapter 2

The lobby was quiet as Ray crossed the tiled floor the next morning, arriving just after 7:45 for his 8:00 shift. Apart from a janitor and a couple security guards, Ray was alone in the large entryway. After two years in the Paris Police, Ray was used to being among the first people to arrive at city hall in the morning; his normal routine often had him awake well before the sun. A police station could be expected to be bustling with activity at all hours – crime didn’t keep set hours, after all. But in comparison to the 21st Arrondissement Precinct where he had been assigned before joining the SLD, city hall kept very strict “business hours.” The majority of those who worked at city hall were politicians and their aides, along with a handful of city employees, most of whom wouldn’t report for work until 8:30 at the earliest – after a particularly late political event, Mayor Bourgeois might call his security detail to leave the hotel until after noon.

Ray reached the Records Office door and held it open, nodding as Girardot and Mansart walked out on their way home at the end of their night shift. The main office was still empty – the regular Records clerk wouldn’t arrive until 8:30. The only light came through the frosted window in the far door which led to the back room that served as the SLD’s office. Ray twisted his neck in either direction to work out the kinks as he entered. Bloch, the night dispatcher, was just finishing up his paperwork, and Ray greeted him with, “Morning, Mathieu,” before pouring himself a mug of coffee from the carafe in the corner. He took a small sip and puckered his lips in distaste.

“Sorry about that,” Bloch apologized, hitting a couple keys to log off the computer. “That pot is still whatever was in there when you left last night; I didn’t actually drink any, and I didn’t realize it was time to make a fresh pot until Sgt. Girardot arrived to drop off the night’s report.”

Ray forced himself to drink another gulp of the bitter coffee. “I’ve… had worse,” he managed, grimacing. One of these days he needed to buy his own coffeepot. Or maybe convince Delphine to add one to their registry. “Was the night really that quiet?”

Bloch shrugged. “Nothing much of note to report. The most exciting call came when police in the 4th Arrondissement responded to a report of a mugger who turned out to be carrying a cheap energy pistol. Too back for him that his target had one of those safe-T-lite things on him.”

“Another one?”

“They seem to the appearing more frequently.” Bloch frowned. “Didn’t work out so great this time. The man shot the mugger, and the safe-T-lite melted down. The mugger suffered non-life-threatening injuries, but the victim got third-degree burns covering his palm. Both were rushed to the hospital. Other than that, there were a couple sightings of Tyran-X on the north side. I alerted Turing to send the cavalry, but Tyran-X was already gone by the time the Heroes could arrive.”

“Any new abductions?”

Bloch shook his head. “Nothing on that front,” he replied. His shoulders slumped. “And no sightings of the missing girls, either.”

“Well, no news is good news, right?”

“What’s good news?” called a voice from the doorway.

Ray looked up at Élodie in surprise but quickly exchanged his own cup of old coffee for the one she extracted from the tray in her hands. She laid the tray on the desk along with an overflowing bag with “Fall into Autumn Flavors” written across it.

“It’s ‘good news’ that there _isn’t_ any news about the missing girls,” Ray explained, frowning.

Élodie pursed her lips and hummed in concern as she shrugged out of her coat and hung it on the coat rack. With that taken care of, she took Bloch’s place at the desk, typing in her login code and donning her headset. “I do hope we’ll find _something_ about those poor girls soon…”

Bloch shrugged, stifling a yawn as he put on his coat, his hand already on the door. “Well, it’s your problem for today.”

“Is Vernant here yet?” Ray called before Bloch could leave. “Last night he said he was going to stay late to run a few tests on these safe-T-lites.”

Bloch chuckled. “I don’t think he ever _left_ yesterday,” he answered. “He came up a couple times for coffee, but that’s about it.”

Élodie furrowed her brows and pulled a croissant out of her bag. “I wonder if he ever called Liz…” she mused, glancing over at the regular phone. She handed Ray the pastry and gave him a firm look. “Make sure he actually eats this. I’m sure he hasn’t had anything if he pulled an all-nighter.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed, hitting the elevator button. The door opened instantly, and he pressed the button for the department’s subterranean lab. The elevator doors were just closing when Roux walked into the office and nodded to Élodie, who held out a croissant to him. Ray stuck his hand out to keep the elevator from closing, and Roux joined him.

“Any idea what the job is for today?” Roux asked as the elevator dropped the three floors to the lab.

Ray shook his head. “At a guess, more canvassing for information about these missing persons,” he replied. “But that’s just a guess. Prefect’s been all over this case – not that I blame him.”

“If _I_ had a teenage daughter, _I_ ’d probably be pretty incensed by this whole thing, too,” Roux agreed, nodding darkly.

“At least this time there was a witness,” Ray commented. “Maybe that will be enough. But I’m not sure what the blank affect will give us.”

Roux cocked his head and frowned. “‘Blank affect’? That’s strange: a couple weeks before the first of these girls went missing, I pulled a night shift and we had a situation like that. We didn’t see the incident take place, but the Heroes stopped a girl being thrown in a van. Same deal: blank affect, everything.”

“Think there’s a connection?”

Roux shrugged. “Worth a look, at least. I’ll ask Élodie to pull the report later.”

“Pity we don’t know anything more about it.” Ray looked down at the floor, lost in thought, and sighed as the elevator doors opened. The two officers walked across the brightly-lit open-pattern room, past the two enclosed lab rooms along the near wall, toward the figure in the middle of the room. Vernant stood in front of a table holding a number of different devices of various sizes and shapes, making notes on a tablet. Five meters away was a metal target with a number of holes scorched through it, set in front of a cinderblock wall. Ray placed the croissant on the table in front of Vernant, who glanced up at them in surprise.

“Ah, is it morning already?” he asked, biting off one end of the croissant. “I hadn’t realized it was that late – or early, as it were.”

“What have you got for us?” Ray asked.

“More than you had, but less than you would like,” answered Vernant wryly, humming in pleasure while taking another bite of his pastry.

“Well _that_ clears everything up,” Ray joked as the elevator behind them dinged.

“But it’s par for the course around here,” Roux pointed out, raising an eyebrow.

“Prefect wants an update as soon as we have anything,” Ramus informed them, stopping next to them with Gouger at his side. “Four missing girls is four too many.”

“Agreed,” Vernant replied. He grimaced. “Unfortunately, the update today regarding that investigation is no different from the last several: no new information. I examined the latest victim’s social media accounts, cross-referenced with the other victims, and still have nothing. Comparing histories I have found a few overlaps that would account for three, none of which share a connection to all four victims. Going through the computer you brought me last night did not turn up anything new. The computer itself is completely clean – no embedded viruses or hidden correspondence. Her phone is off, and the last GPS signal was less than a block from her apartment, and no more than fifteen minutes after her father said that she left. If I had her phone, perhaps that would give _some_ connection, but for right now…” He shrugged. “I do not have a single new lead for you. Not on that investigation, anyways.”

“That’s disappointing,” Roux observed, a dark look in his eyes.

“I’ll keep working on it,” promised Vernant, his mouth set in a thin line.

“‘Not on that investigation’,” Ramus repeated slowly, furrowing his brows. “Does that mean you have something on the other one?”

Vernant nodded and gestured to the table. Glancing at the clock on the wall he explained, “I have spent the last sixteen hours analyzing every piece of available data on every photon-emission device we have recovered to-date. The Heroes of Paris have compiled an impressive file on those favored by the Lynchpin and his men, and the progression in their development is obvious.” He pointed to three on the far side of the table. “These crude models were the Lynchpin’s earliest attempts at producing his own energy weapon, followed by these here.” He picked up another device. “You remember we confiscated this from a petty criminal taken in the commission of a burglary over the summer. While he claimed not to have any affiliation with the Lynchpin, the manufacture of this weapon contradicts that assertion.”

“What are you saying?” Gouger asked. “These are all Lynchpin?”

“The Lynchpin’s designer has a signature style,” Vernant confirmed, nodding. He replaced the device he was holding and picked up one designed to be wrist-mounted. “I will avoid boring you with the details, but I can tell you that all of these devices were designed off of the same template, if not by the same person. Even the Beam of Life bears some characteristics similar to one of the earlier Lynchpin models. So, for that matter, do our own energy pistols and rifles, including your prosthetic, Luc. Fortunately for the users, this template is well designed, with proper systems for temperature regulation. _Un_ fortunately, the same cannot be said for these.” He picked up a safe-T-lite, tagged as the one they had confiscated the day before. “These are not designed from the Lynchpin template and are missing that temperature regulation control. That is why they melt down roughly 5% of the time.”

“And that’s another reason why we need to get these things off the streets,” Ramus pointed out with a meaningful look at Ray.

“Well, with the information we got yesterday, maybe we can track down the maker,” Ray replied, raising an eyebrow.

Ramus nodded in concession. “We can certainly hope.”

“Sometime around four this morning I went and cross checked your lead with everything else we have learned,” Vernant supplied, pressing a button on his tablet. “Based on my mapping program, the safe-T-lite devices are being sold in seven different locations around the city.”

Ramus looked down at something on his prosthetic and nodded slowly. “With the size of the operation, someone at one of those locations might know where they are being manufactured,” he observed. “Good work tonight,” he told Vernant. “Now you should go home and rest.”

“I will be sure to take a nap,” Vernant agreed, nodding.

Ramus furrowed his brows in contemplation and looked around at the other three. “De Gouges, you take Luron and check the three locations south of the river. Roux, you and I will check the four to the north.”


	3. Chapter 3

Ray followed Gouger into the thrift shop and looked around suspiciously, his brows furrowed. Books were stacked from floor to ceiling along one wall. An old VCR sat on a scratched end table next to a boxy television, with a crate of children’s toys shoved haphazardly underneath it. Row upon row of clothing racks held a wide array of shirts, pants, dresses, and the like, in styles that Ray hadn’t seen in use since he was in collège. “Do people really still wear this stuff?” he muttered, raising an eyebrow dubiously.

Gouger scoffed. “You would be surprised what people will wear when they don’t have any better options,” she answered, fingering a lurid tricolor skirt with distaste. She cocked her head in surprise, staring at the tag. “This doesn’t look like _anything_ designed by Agreste…”

Ray snorted. “You know, I thought the same thing about Malediktator!”

“Point,” she conceded, her lip curving upward in a smirk. “Although I would avoid mentioning him around city hall – or at least within earshot of Bourgeois!”

Ray chuckled in agreement. “This is the third place we’ve checked,” he complained, peering down the aisle at the back wall.

“Maybe the others are having better luck,” Gouger replied, shrugging. An associate walked over to them sporting a too-wide smile, almost enough to turn into a grimace.

“Hi! What can I do for you, officers?” the woman asked, a little too eagerly.

“Police business,” Gouger told her curtly, turning to examine a ceramic figure on an open-backed bookcase. “We’re just following up on a routine matter.”

The woman cocked her head in confusion. “I’m sorry?”

“A couple of stores over in the 17th Arrondissement were broken into last night and had a handful of smaller items stolen,” Ray explained smoothly as Gouger stopped partway down the next row, looking underneath an entertainment center. “We’re just checking every thrift store in the city to make sure the thieves didn’t hit anywhere else.”

“Um… we haven’t had any break-ins here,” the clerk told him, shaking her head.

“Are you sure? These thieves were real pros about it,” Ray told her. Seeing the door along the far wall labeled “Employees Only,” he started down the aisle, stopping partway to look at a decorative lamp. “One of the stores we checked didn’t realize anything was missing until we checked the security cameras.”

“Sorry; we actually don’t have any security cameras,” the clerk replied.

Ray stopped and nodded toward the ceiling. “You have a camera right there,” he pointed out. “Is the monitor in the back?”

“Oh, is that what that is?” she asked in surprise. She stared at the metal dome, brows furrowed. “I… I’m not sure where it would be, actually. I haven’t _seen_ a monitor anywhere.”

“Can we check the back room anyways?” Ray asked as they reached the far wall.

The clerk pursed her lips and looked back and forth between the two police officers, her eyes drifting toward the vacant counter. “I’m not supposed to let anyone but employees through that door,” she admitted, grimacing. “But I suppose it’s okay for the police.” She pushed the door open and led them through into a back room lined with metal shelving units and piled from floor to ceiling with cardboard boxes. “I don’t know how you expect to find any evidence of a break-in back here,” she observed wryly.

Gouger knelt next to the stack closest to the door, examining the second box from the bottom. Furrowing her brows, she ran a finger along the bottom edge. “I think we might have something here,” she muttered, finding a slit in the cardboard that reached down to the bottom of the box and formed a narrow flap large enough for three fingers to fit inside. Pushing the flap in and reaching inside the box, Gouger rummaged around a little before she slid out a safe-T-lite. She looked up at the clerk, her mouth set in a hard line. “Do you know what this is?”

The clerk shrugged. “It looks like a flashlight. We sell them behind the counter out front.”

“Do you know where they come from?” asked Ray, keeping his voice even and nonthreatening.

The clerk shook her head. “Whenever we’re running low, my manager will restock from back here. But that’s as much as I know.”

“Where _is_ your manager?”

She shrugged. “He was here this morning, but I haven’t seen him since lunch.”

Gouger straightened up and looked around the storage room, examining everything from the ceiling to the floor. “Is this _all_ there is back here?”

Ray carefully paced from the door across the storage room to the far wall. “From the outside it looks like the building should be at least another ten meters longer than what we can see here,” he explained. “Is there another room beyond this one? Extra storage? Break room? Repair shop?”

The clerk’s eyes shifted between them suspiciously. “I–I don’t know. What is this about, really?”

“Do you know how much trouble you could be in?” Gouger warned her.

“Trouble?” the woman squeaked, wide-eyed with panic.

“Look,” Ray began, holding a hand up calmly. “These devices here are both dangerous and illegal, and we’re trying to find where they come from. But if you can help us out, I promise you won’t be in any trouble.”

The clerk looked back and forth between them and sighed, pointing toward an alcove formed against the outside wall by several metal shelves. “There is another door behind there, hidden by those pallets, but I’ve never seen anyone use it. None of the employees are supposed to go back there.”

The two officers threaded their way around pallets holding a beat-up washer-and-dryer set to find a bare metal door with a covered peephole at eye level and a deadbolt above the handle. Waving for the clerk to stay behind the boxes, Ray raised an eyebrow at Gouger, who furrowed her brows in thought before she grabbed the door handle and twisted. The lock mechanism within the handle snapped audibly, and she pulled it open, wrenching the deadbolt clean out of the wall. Placing his hand on his pistol’s grip without drawing it, Ray stepped in front of the opening as the door blocked Gouger’s sight temporarily. Pushing the door back against the wall, she joined him in staring at the scene within the small workroom.

A trio of men stood around two tables piled high with electronic components. On one end of the far table a 3D printer hummed noisily, churning out thick plastic cylinders. The first man removed the completed cylinders from the printer bed and placed them into a plastic container. Next to the printer another device printed circuit boards, which the second man examined through a lens before soldering on several additional components and placing it at the end of a line of other partially-completed electronic components. The final worker took this half-finished set of internal workings, slid it into the handle, screwed it in place, added a lens, sealed it, and placed a plastic safety tab over the trigger switch. Finally, he set it carefully in a box on the floor with other completed safe-T-lites. Distracted by the noise of the printer, drowned out by music playing over the radio, the workers didn’t look up as the police officers walked into the center of the room.

Gouger stopped less than a meter behind the nearest worker and cleared her throat loudly. The man looked up from his work, his jaw nearly hitting the floor on recognizing her police uniform. Ray saw his gaze drift down to the completed safe-T-lite in his hand, a calculating look in his eye. As the man contemplated the device, Ray tensed, all his senses heightened. But catching the man’s attention, he shook his head, patting the holster of his own energy pistol. The man’s eyes widened and he paled, his shoulders slumping. Carefully he placed the device on the table in front of him before nudging the worker next to him. Gouger raised an eyebrow. “You men are _all_ under arrest, you know,” she calmly announced once she had all of their attention.

Ray tapped the radio on his shoulder. “We appear to have located the safe-T-lite production location,” he reported, giving the address.

“Lieutenant Ramus will be relieved to hear that,” Élodie responded quickly. “He and Officer Roux confiscated a few dozen of them, but that’s it so far. I’ll send Unit 3 to start collecting evidence.”

As one, the three workers raised their hands meekly. Ray pulled out a pair of handcuffs, tossed it to one of them, and watched him start putting them on before he cuffed the second. Once both of them had been restrained, Gouger snapped her own cuffs on the third. Only after all three prisoners were taken care of did Ray turn his attention to checking them for weapons while Gouger watched them. As he patted the first one down, the other two slumped against the table, exchanging sullen looks but not offering any more resistance than that. Ray pulled a safe-T-lite out of one man’s pocket; another carried a small penknife. After satisfying himself that they were clean, Ray grabbed one man’s upper arm. “Time for you three to go down to the station and answer some questions,” he announced.

“We were only trying to help people protect themselves,” one of the men protested as Ray maneuvered him through the doorway and into the back room, past the appliances and the boxes and the surprised employee.

“With all the superhuman threats running around the city these days, what are people supposed to do?” demanded another.

Ray sighed heavily. “I can’t exactly fault you for wanting to help people,” he admitted. “Even though your device is illegal. However,” he added seriously, “these things are dangerous to the user. Some people have hurt themselves when they’ve used them.”

“Wait, what?” the third man asked, cocking his head in confusion.

“You didn’t know they were melting down?”

The first man groaned. “I _told_ you we needed to do more tests!”

“We didn’t experience any problems,” the third one objected. “How were we supposed to know?”

“So what’s going to happen to us now?” asked the third, brows knit together in worry.

“I guess that’s up to the courts to decide,” Gouger answered him as they exited the store and directed their prisoners toward the patrol car.

After squeezing the three prisoners into the car’s backseat, Ray put his hand on the roof and turned to Gouger, frowning. “Was this really the best use of our time today?”

She let out a breath. “Well, we did cut off one supplier of dangerous weapons,” she pointed out.

“There are going to be other ones.”

“Probably.” She sighed heavily. “We can’t really put the genie back in the bottle. But maybe those won’t melt down on people.”

Ray looked down into the car, where their three prisoners sat quietly, one staring out the window while another studied his hands. After arresting so many criminals – some like Elemento even possessing powers – these three just looked like… people.

“Look,” Gouger finally told him. “We did the right thing today.”

“But did we do the _right_ thing?” he asked. “They thought _they_ were doing the ‘right thing,’ too.”

She scoffed. “I guess that’s between you and your priest.”

Another patrol car pulled into the thrift store parking lot, and Wilson stepped out, along with Vernant. “This is the place?” Wilson asked, arching an eyebrow dubiously. “It doesn’t look like it.”

Ray shrugged. “I guess looks can be deceiving.”

“Where am I going?” Vernant asked, cradling a cup of coffee in both hands.

“Through the back,” Gouger replied, gesturing toward the front door.

“Sure you’re up for this?” Ray asked him, furrowing his brows doubtfully.

Vernant waved a hand dismissively. “I napped for three hours.”

“If you say so…”

The radio crackled. “Local officers will arrive shortly to take them into custody,” Élodie informed them. “The Prefect decided that they don’t really fall into the category of ‘superhuman threats’ for the moment.”

“Copy,” Gouger responded immediately.

Ray let out a breath. “I guess now we can get back to investigating _actual_ superhuman crime…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this is the end of “The safe-T-lite Situation.” The case of the missing girls will be resolved… eventually. For now, tomorrow I’m returning to “The Woman Out of the Fridge.”


End file.
